154 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



well, Thomas Pears, a nephew of his wife, Thomas 

 Bakewell, his son, as well as John James Audubon. 

 The hospitable family to which young Audubon was 

 now admitted on terms of intimacy, in accordance with 

 the custom of the day, lived in the rear of the counting- 

 house during the winter months but in summer migrated 

 , to the country, the Bake wells going five miles out on 

 the Bloomingdale Road. Benjamin Bakewell had 

 come to this country in 1794, in the same year as the 

 famous chemist, Joseph Priestley, whose friendship he 

 enjoyed and whose religious teachings had drawn both 

 him and his brother, William, from rigid Calvinism to 

 the greater tolerance of the Unitarian belief. At 

 twenty- four he was an independent mercer in Corn- 

 hill, London, and was well acquainted in France, where 

 he had spent considerable time during the Revolution, 

 which had destroyed his trade. One of his patrons at 

 this time was Claude Fra^ois Rozier of Nantes, and 

 inasmuch as the correspondence with him had to be 

 conducted in French, and may possibly in this instance 

 have been due to young Audubon's initiative, it was 

 naturally intrusted to him. 



Seven letters of the naturalist, dating from January 

 10, 1807, to July 19 of that year, by good fortune have 

 been preserved, and they throw into full light another 

 shaded corner of his interesting life. From the con- 

 tents of these letters, 8 as well as from other facts, we 



8 For the privilege of examining these letters I am indebted to the 

 courtesy of Dr. Louis Bureau, Director of the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory and Professor in the School of Medicine at Nantes, maternal great- 

 grandson of Francois, and grandnephew of Ferdinand Rozier. The letters 

 were found in an old trunk that once belonged to his grandfather, Fra^ois 

 Denis Rozier. Five were written in French (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7), and 

 addressed from New York to Francois Rozier at Nantes; one (No. 3) 

 in English and another (No. 5) in French were sent in care of Rozier, 

 to his father, John Audubon, Esq., Nantes, with the direction to be 

 delivered as soon as possible; all are on unruled foolscap, wafer-sealed, 



